


for now i am winter

by alltheworldsinmyhead



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Afterlife, Angst and Tragedy, F/M, Family Feels, Implied/Referenced Death in Childbirth, be prepared, how about becoming a ghost, lots of sadness, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-26 19:01:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20031910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alltheworldsinmyhead/pseuds/alltheworldsinmyhead
Summary: What a terrible irony it is.For Arya to yearn for what she has never wanted and for her to be seated on the stands and forced to silently watch as life unfolds, winter winds freezing her to the bone.





	for now i am winter

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the absolutely beautiful and heartbreaking song by Ólafur Arnalds and Arnór Dan. Show compliant, no book canon knowledge needed.

> _From winter to summer and winter again_
> 
> _To the walls that crumble and fall_
> 
> _And she never wanted to leave_
> 
> _Never wanted to leave_

There is no sweeter sound in the world than her little boy’s soft snores as he is lying next to her on a giant featherbed, buried in the mattress. He’s on his belly, left side of his face pressed to the pillow and his dark hair messy. She gently cards through them, silently amused about how much of them there is and how the way they fall on his forehead perfectly mirrors the look of his father.

Ed is a tall boy for his four name days, but skinny; his shoulder blades stick-out sharply, making him look narrow and fragile, glass-delicate. Arya watches the rise-and-fall of his back as he breaths deeply and marvels, marvels without measure.

_Because how could something as perfect as him come out of my body?_

Mother warned her about this, many years ago, countless of times and with this infuriating, infinite certainty in her voice that used to drive Arya mad. _You will be a mother one day, my girl, and you will love your pups without measure. It is not possible for a mother not to love her babe. _But Catelyn bore five healthy children and even after nearly bleeding out while bringing Rickon into the world, she silently mourned the lost possibility of having more. Catelyn was made to nurse and nurture and wipe running noses, fashioned by the gods themselves for all of this. And while growing up in Winterfell, Arya could not even imagine herself doing any of those things; she very much wished never to be a lady, never marry and for sure never give birth to any children, and she would purely refuse to listen about anything connected with the subject altogether. In her dreams, she was to be a sellsword or a lord of a holdfast, or an explorer maybe, like the famed Sea Snake, Corlys Velaryon. Not a mother at all. Even when she eventually got pregnant, when she felt Ed first moving inside her, the first and primary feeling awoken in her heart was fear. Fear, unsteadiness, a gut-wrenching urge to just run, run away, leave everything behind, before it can be torn away from her. Her nightmares came back, their intensity rising tenfold and more often than not she would shout herself and Gendry awake more than once during the night. Any love that might have appeared then was delicate and dimmed, overshadowed by everything else and certainly incomparable with the wild beast of devotion that sank its teeth into her heart the moment midwife laid him on her breast and he looked up at her with those Stark-grey eyes of his.

The seed is strong, indeed, and Ed is all Baratheon, from the tips of his toes to the top of his dark head. But he has a blood of wolves running in his veins also, as his eyes are Winterfell and snow and his grandfather, and if she believed in any gods, she would pray so that he never forgets that.

Reluctantly, Arya tears her gaze from her son to glance at the window. Lord’s bedchamber is located at the very top of Storm’s End drum tower, with the spectacular view on the Shipbreaker’s Bay, but she is in no mood to enjoy it now. The dawn has almost come, with a soft-pink glow already creeping on the stones, chasing shadows away. Soon, the sun will rise, basking two sleeping people in its sharp light until they awaken. And the day will start.

And she will say goodbye again.

She turns her head slowly, her silent heart heavy in her chest as she allows herself to look at Gendry. His hulking form towers over their son as he is laying on his side, his head resting on his forearm. He used to sleep like that many years ago, Arya remembers. When they were runaways, Night’s Watch recruits, prisoners at Harrenhall. But since she appeared in his bed, or cot or wherever they would rest, he has always slept with his arms around her; his body hot like the forge’s fire warming her up.

She knows her hands are cold, that their touch must resemble that of winter winds, but she cannot stop herself, cannot deny herself this pleasure. She leans above him and traces the strong, solemn lines of his face with her fingertips. The slope of his nose, the shape of his lips and the curve of his jaw, so familiar as if they were her own. Wrinkles on his forehead and in-between his brows, carved so deeply and so painfully in his skin; those that weren’t there when she still had a heartbeat and blood running in her veins. Back when he could grab her hands and kiss her wrists tenderly. Back when she was still Arya Stark, Lady of Storm’s End, married to lord Gendry Baratheon and carrying his heir under her heart. So long ago.

It didn’t take her much time to realize she’s dead.

She simply closed her eyes and when she opened them again, she was standing beside the birthing bed, both of her hands pressed to her unmoving chest and watching, wide-eyed, as Gendry was cursing the old gods and the new and all others, her limp form curled on the mattress. And she just knew, the knowledge coming with a bubble of bitter laughter from her lips. So many battles won and she didn’t even get to see the spring. Finally, her old companion came to claim her. _Today, today, today_.

She skipped the burial, deciding she can do without seeing more of her grief-stricken husband who seemingly had aged decades in span of mere hours and Jon, oh gods, she did not wish to see Jon kissing her cheek goodbye at all. So she spent the whole affair in the nursery, with wet nurse snoring in the corner and her son happily kicking his legs in joy whenever she would make painted figurines on his mobile move with a sway of her hand in the air.

Arya doesn’t spare much thought to why she didn’t pass over to whatever afterlife awaits her, if there is any. What matters is that she’s still here and at least she got to see Ed’s first reckless steps and his first smile. She can watch as he grows up, year after year. Maybe now she is merely a shadow, Jenny of Oldstones stuck dancing in the ruins of her home, but it's better than not being here at all. 

The sun will rise for Gendry and Ed soon; it will wake them up and the rest of the holdfast also. It will also wake up all the lords and ladies gathered for the upcoming festivities, not to mention an entire army of servants ready to attend to nobles all day and night, until next dawn.

And Arya knows, somewhere in the rawest part of her, the one that still _feels_ even after all this time, even now, that the sun will also awaken soft-spoken, fair-haired Elinor Swann. Oh, Elinor, Elinor and her bluebell eyes, Elinor with her beautiful singing voice, Elinor with her graceful, long neck and blushed cheeks of a maiden betrothed. Elinor, spring-incarnate. Elinor, who is everything that Arya never was.

She wonders briefly if Gendry consciously chose as different woman from her as possible, or this was just a laughable, painful coincidence that no guest at the wedding will fail to notice.

For Elinor will say her vows in the sept, not in front of a heart tree, and she will, no doubt about it, go into her marriage bed a maiden untouched. She will say all the right things and be a proper lady at all times. Arya would love to hate her for that, to hate her even on principle but as much as she tries she cannot, doesn’t have the strength to do it.

The honest truth is, Elinor is a good woman, without malice or ill-will for anyone. She likes to sing, likes to laugh, likes to play card games. She’s clever and level-headed. To be honest, she reminds Arya a little bit of Sansa, if Sansa had a chance to become a woman in happier circumstances and get rid of her childish pettiness in a less terrible way. 

And Ed deserves a mother like that. A good mother, the one that would sing to him and mend his torn-up breeches, and fret over his dirty clothes and wet hair after he sneaked up to play in the mud after the storm again. He deserves siblings to annoy him and protect him, and a beautiful childhood like hers instead of lingering grief and borrowed memories.

And Gendry deserves a good wife, the one whom he could kiss and love, who would make the lines on his face disappear and give him more children. The woman who is warm and real, and by his side.

He deserves the family he has always wanted. She thought she could be that family, wished for it as badly as one can but in the end, turned out too weak for that. After everything they’ve been through, she still left him. No matter how hard she fought, she slipped away from his desperate hands, right into the darkness. What a grand, tragic story.

He blames himself, against all reason. Drinks too much, spends too much time walking through the woods alone. Doesn’t work in the forge anymore. It’s excruciating, watching him like that and if Elinor can do anything to make him better, Arya will push her into his bed herself, no hesitation.

_So maybe it’s for the best. - _She thinks, pressing a small kiss to Gendry’s brow. – _I would never be completely satisfied with being a lady wife, being a mother. I would always wonder about distant lands and Bravos and what-ifs. Elinor won’t ever wish for more than this. _

Swiftly, she jumps from the bed, her feet soundless on the stone floor. She tries to recall the feeling of the coldness of it biting her soles and she cannot.

Gendry and Ed still sleep soundly, now surrounded by the light. Tomorrow, there will be a golden-head next to their dark ones and Arya knows she will never come back here again. There are things she can bear to watch, that she made her peace with. But there are also things that would hurt her still, like a thousand blades stuck in her body, and it is one of them surely. It’s an agony that she is going to spare herself - observing another woman getting what Arya was so close to having. What she had, for a time as brief as it was sweet. 

She wishes she could cry though. Not being able to cry makes everything a dozen times harder.

_I hope she will be good for you, the best, better than I ever could.- _She says helplessly, her lips moving with no sound appearing.- _But you should know she can never love you as much as I do._

She does love them, as much as a ghost can love, as much as a wolf can; she loved them before winter came for her as she was laying bloodied and feverish on the birthing bed and she loves them still. How marvelous that after a lifetime spent mostly on being hateful and merciless and burning for revenge, it’s love that keeps her still tethered to her existence.

How beautiful is that.

_I wish you all the happiness in the world. – _she whispers against the frost coating her mouth.

She grants herself a second of watching as Gendry stirs awake, his brilliant blue eyes opening as her own are closing and she dissolves into the shadows, descends into coldness yet again, not a trace left of her except for the early morning chill and passing smell of fresh snow. 

And so it goes.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going through a really, really tough time right now and I would really appreciate a comment if you enjoyed this story. Thank you so much for reading it and I wish you a great day ;)


End file.
